Help! I think I broke Gnome!
 

I'm a relative Linux newbie, so please be gentle with me. I can handle almost anything, just may need instructions on exactly how to do it. I'm not, however, scared of a terminal. On to the problem.....

I've got Ubuntu installed on an Acer Aspire laptop. I had the last stable release installed (9 something); now have the current version (10.0.4, I think), which I upgraded to hoping it would solve my problem (it didn't). I've been running the Gnome desktop since I first installed, and decided to try KDE. I didn't like the look of feel of KDE, or the way it took over when booting and required me to select Gnome manually every time I booted, so I decided to remove it. This point is where I obviously made my mistake. I opened Synaptics package manager, did a search for "KDE", and removed everything it showed as being installed. Now, I can no longer have more than one workspace, program windows no longer have the "hide", "maximize/minimize", or "close" buttons in the upper right corner, and I cannot make a window go fullscreen. This may be totally unrelated, but I've also noticed that neither core of my CPU ever falls below 44% anymore. Those are the only problems I've noticed so far; there may be others I haven't found yet. I'm sure I've just removed something I shouldn't have, but I have no idea what it was. Can anyone give me an idea of what to reinstall? If any more info is needed, just ask, and I'll provide it when I get a chance.

have you checked top command?

There's a meta package called "gnome-desktop-environment" (at least on debian, I /assume/ it is called the same on ubuntu). Install this package, it depends on ALL packages related to the gnome desktop. If it is installed, you can't miss packages related to basic gnome functionality.

But: Your problems could as well be configuration issues. One question: Do the windows have any decorations (borders and title bar) AT ALL? If not, your desktop doesn't start a window manager...

Yooy, I have no idea what "top command" is, nor do I know how to check it. A few instructions would be helpful at this point....


Zirias, I'll installing that package and see what happens. I did a search in Synaptics for "Gnome", but it lists so much stuff, I didn't even know where to begin. To answer your question, no, there is no "border" or "title bar" on any program window. The Firefox window I'm posting this in only shows the file, edit, view, etc. menus across the top, nothing else. Will installing the package you mentioned reinstall the window manager?

Thanks for the replies, and I'll let you know what I find!

OK, I opened Synaptics, found "Gnome-desktop-environment", and told it to mark it for install. It told me, of course, that other packages will have to be installed, so I told it OK. It "thinks" for a few seconds, then tells me that it can't install it, because its not going to install part of the packages! That's not the exact report it gives me, of course, but that's pretty much what it amounts to.

Try installing with "sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment" (I hope I've remembered that correctly) and tell us exactly what error messages you get.

Incidentally, "top" is just a command you use to get details of memory usage, CPU load, and processes running. If Gnome's system monitor says you're using 44%, I doubt that top will disagree.

I think you remembered it right. Here are my results:

kf4sqb@Acer:~$ sudo apt-get install gnome-desktop-environment
[sudo] password for kf4sqb:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
default-jre: Depends: default-jre-headless (= 1.6-30ubuntu5) but 1.6-34 is to be installed
Depends: openjdk-6-jre (>= 6b11) but it is not going to be installed
gconf2: Depends: dbus-x11 but it is not going to be installed
gconf2-common: Depends: dbus but it is not going to be installed
gnome-desktop-environment: Depends: gnome-core (= 1:2.28+1ubuntu3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: brasero (>= 2.28) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: cheese (>= 2.28) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: deskbar-applet (>= 2.28) but it is not going to be installed


That's not all of it, but it cut off the rest when I copied and pasted it. The rest is just more of the same, anyway. Thoughts?

Just install ubuntu-desktop.

From the sound of what you are describing, you are missing metacity and/or compiz.

Try "aptitude update" first. If problems like the quoted persist, you have somehow managed to install several packages from newer releases as your current distribution. You can add them one-by-one to your "aptitude install" commandline in the format name=version (e.g. default-jre-headless=1.6-30ubuntu5) to force downgrade.

But pay attention: If it comes to packages like glibc, coreutils, etc, you will get into problems. And also pay attention for packages aptitude wants to remove.

Success!!! After a little further investigation, it turns out that the upgrade I thought I did to Ubuntu (9.01 to 10.04, I think), for some reason, didn't take. I was still running 9.01. Tried the upgrade again, and it took this time, but it still didn't solve my problem. So, I went back and tried again to install the gnome-desktop-environment package with Synaptics, and it breezed right through this time. I also installed the compiz package that jay73 mentioned, because I seem to remember that being one of the packages that was removed when I removed KDE the way I did. After a reboot, everything is back to normal.

As for the processor issue, it turns out that there is no processor issue, just an application issue. I was getting the 44% report from the CPU monitor that can be installed to the upper or lower desktop panel. Top and the system monitor found in the system/administration menu both report the CPU at a low idle (around 3%) at rest, while the monitor installed in the desktop panel is still showing 44%. In fact, the only time the monitor on the desktop panel shows anything else, is under heavy CPU load. If it gets much above 50%, it jumps up to 100% and stays there. To solve that problem, I'll just remove that application from the panel.

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, ideas, information, and inspiration! I've given thanks where due (:hattip:), and I will try to avoid such rookie mistakes in the future!:doh:

A lot of packages that simply work with KDE have KDE in their description.

Also, KDE apps work under GNOME, too.